Write On

Sometimes you read a book. It hooks you from the first sentence, and just keeps on getting better. It makes you laugh. It makes you cry. It inspires you to do better, or be better. When you reach the final page, you feel like you’ve lost the best friend you ever had. Then you open your own manuscript, and find that suddenly, from nowhere, an ominous lead ball has miraculously appeared in your gut. You could never write like the author who penned the fabulous book that you’ve just finished reading. In fact, your writing sucks. Big time. And there it is. You can’t write at all anymore. Every sentence is fiddled with. Or worse, deleted. And the next few weeks are spent trying to write just as beautifully as the magical creator of that perfect book that you can’t get out of your mind. But it’s no good. You can’t. At this point quite a few writers give up entirely, their story left to be forgotten—never to see the light of a reader’s smile.

The thing is though, that the author of that magical book probably felt exactly as you did at some point. We all feel that way sometimes. We forget that each and every writer has their very own kind of magic, but I don’t know any writers who can see that wonderful stuff. Their own magic. Writers are by their very nature sensitive. Without natural empathy, wisdom, people-savvy, and a whole lot of general knowledge, they wouldn’t be able to ply their trade very well. Sensitivity tends to go hand in hand with self-criticism a lot of the time too, so we are fabulously capable of metaphorically beating the daylights out of ourselves, without any outside help at all. Unfortunately there is quite a lot of outside help around for any scribbler looking (or even not looking) to be criticised, so we should try really hard not to do it to ourselves. Remember that Stephen King tossed Carrie into the bin, convinced that it was absolute rubbish. If his wife hadn’t fished it out—who knows where he would be today.

Don’t ever let anything stop you from writing until you’re finished. And when you’re finished don’t let anything stop you from getting published, if that is your dream. That’s when you find out whether your book is good or not—only then. And even then, you don’t know the people who will buy your book. You’ll never see the smile on their lips, or hear them laugh loudly at some little sentence that you thought was quite silly, after reading that magic book you found. But that’s alright. We don’t need to know about the readers we may have inspired, or comforted, or irritated for that matter. We just do what we must, and write on.

Reblogged this on Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life and commented:
Jo Robinson is writing for Lit World Interviews today on the subject of writer insecurity. I am sure that many of you with empathise with the subject matter. Will I ever write a book that will be considered exceptional and one of the best books ever written? I don’t know but I do know that I have to keep practising and learning my craft and who knows… one day. And we are lucky to be doing something we love…..

Don’t you hate when that happens, when you read something amazing and think, “I should quit, there is no way I’ll ever be as good as that author.”
Good to know, I’m not the only one who has those days. Thanks 🙂

Oh yes! Think that all the time. It must be true, I’m not selling heaps of books like everyone else, so I must be writing shite. 😁 Actually, it’s just that I haven’t been discovered yet. Lol! Hope it happens while I’m still on this side, unlike Mr Tolkien. Wonder what he’d think now…

LOL! You’ll be discovered for sure Ali, and hopefully sooner rather than later. Imagine all the fame after death scribblers leaning on that counter in heaven now – looks like some will have something to whinge about for eternity. LOLOL! 😀

“Write On” I think that is why I am on and am here in the Blog world.
I sufficiently agree to all your points. But when you publish the written stuff as a book, you never know the reactions of the reader, its maybe you get some stats about it by its sales proceedings.
Whereas in our Blogs you get to know the reactions and responses from our dear readers as soon as we publish a post, this is something incredible which I am happy and am enjoying.